Category: reading

We have been looking at Ruth recently on Sunday mornings and three over-arching themes continually speak to me.

The first theme is grace.

We know that Elimelech led his family to Moab because of a famine. It seems reasonable to think that he was trying to ensure their survival but if we speculate about his reasoning and impute motive beyond that, we risk becoming judgemental over issues about which the text is silent. What we do see is the clear, overwhelming, all-defying grace with which God treats Naomi and Ruth. How he works all their experiences together for good. How He provides for them. He provides food, family and a future for them. He gives them gifts of amazing grace and through them, He eventually gives us Jesus.

The second theme is social justice.

The book of Ruth reminds us that God loves the poor and the marginalised. Boaz is a man who lives out the righteous requirements of the law, who enacts justice and loves mercy. God’s law provides for the needs of the poor and the foreigner. Boaz welcomes Naomi and Ruth, he ensures that they are protected and provided for. His actions model for us what it means to live righteously. They speak to the pressing social needs of our society and to the plight of refugees and asylum seekers that fill the pages of newspapers, television and social media screens. Boaz models the life that God intends for us to live – as individuals and as His church.

The third theme is redemption.

Boaz redeems Ruth and Jesus redeems us. Our inheritance has been ensured – our righteous standing with God, our Spirit-filled kingdom life, in His presence, part of His family, partakers of His divine nature. Crucified, buried, resurrected and ascended with Jesus, seated with Him in heavenly realms, we have become children of God. Not because we have earned or deserved it, not because we have achieved it, but because Jesus paid the price of redemption for us, shed his blood and died for us. We were bought at a price.

Out of His endless grace, because He loved us when we had nothing, God redeems us in Jesus.

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I have just finished reading Lonesome Dove. It is an amazing story, beautifully crafted, vividly detailed. It explores the beauty and brutality of life and the kindness and cruelty of the people who inhabit it.

Set in the American West, following a group of cowboys herding from Texas to Montana, Larry McMurtry skillfully rotates perspective among the characters as the tale unfolds. It is brilliantly done.

It is the fatalism of the novel which impacted me most though. The regular deaths, the cruel treatment of key characters, the fears and failings of ordinary and extraordinary people. Woodrow Call, a natural leader of men who gives his life over to doing right, is challenged at the last that he has never been right. It unsettles him and the futility of his own life is joined to the hopelessness of so many others. He is unable to do the single most important thing he has ever needed to do.

It is this sense of futility that resounds so deeply at the moment. The sense that nothing really matters, nothing you do makes any real difference. The sense that we count for nothing. That our lives have no meaning. That we have failed.

It seems to me that this fear is a common human experience. Yet we struggle to face it. It is too hard.

But it’s there. Unchanging. Unrelenting. Is there any purpose or meaning to our lives? For all we achieve, have we ultimately failed?

We need to engage in this conversation, to recognise and understand the fears that haunt so many people. Christians have hope and purpose. Life is not futile. We have a different narrative to tell.

True Grit tells the story of 14-year-old Mattie Ross as she seeks revenge for the murder of her father. Mattie is uncomplicated and incredibly brave. Her voice is clear and authentic and she wins over even the hardest of men with her clarity of mind and her unwavering determination.

“You must pay for everything in this world, one way and another. There is nothing free except the grace of God.”

The book naturally and beautifully re-creates the world of its time. The danger and thrill of the American adventure. The world of the native American, the outlaws, the marshalls and the ordinary families trying to make their honest way. The dignity and the utter cruelty of men. The longing for justice. The love of a daughter.

It is one of those stories that I expect to revisit very soon. Immensely enjoyable.

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In Psalm 23 David has been exploring the image of God as a good shepherd, drawing upon his experiences of God in times of restoration and testing. In verses 5 and 6 he turns to the image of God as a generous host and draws upon his experiences of God in times of blessing.

Now we know that we live with the incredible blessings of God every day. We have already received every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Jesus. We have grace and mercy and forgiveness of sins, we have the adoption as sons and the filling of His Spirit. But there are still seasons of life in which God seems to bring special blessings.

And the table of blessings that God lays out before us in such times are there to be enjoyed. If you have friends round for a meal and you go to a lot of trouble to prepare a fantastic meal, no expense spared and all the garnishing, you don’t really want to hear them say that they are on an onion diet and won’t eat anything but onions. You want them to enjoy the meal you have prepared.

And God wants us to enjoy His blessings. Enjoy them and accept the honour that He gives you in the process.

And in my view, it is in seasons of blessing that it is best to make decisions about the principles we will live by. When things are good, decide how you will parent your children, use your money, serve your church and local community. In a season of blessing, commit yourself to living whole-heartedly for God so that you can carry these things through when times are harder.

And in seasons of blessing, know that God is with you and will always be with you. Goodness and love will follow you all the days of your life. All the days of your eternal life.